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Sleep

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Original poster

Nature or nurture?

44 replies

SweetBasil · 27/01/2009 14:28

My DS is 8 months and has never slept through the night. He wakes a few times, but I only need to feed him once between 19h30 and 6am. Since I don't know any teenagers who wake at night for a drink of milk, I assume this has to change at some point. How does this happen? Do I need to intervene and do something to change this pattern (let him cry, no cry sleep solution, feed him boiled water, pick up/put down)? Or can he magically learn to sleep the way younger babes who haven't yet learned bad habits do?

Is it possible to just leave him to it and let him sleep through when he's ready or do I need to change the way that I respond to the night wake-ups?

OP posts:

tenacityflux · 30/01/2009 22:22

My baby has at least 6 feeds in the day and the last is ff, the rest bf, and doesn't sleep through! all different I guess....

mumblemum · 30/01/2009 23:13

It doesn't just happen at any age, you have to teach them. But do it gently, it's a new skill to be learnt, not discipline. With mine I needed to stop co-sleeping and start getting longer stretches out of her at 4 months - much sooner than I'd planned, but it just felt like time. She also stopped being able to go to sleep in our arms at that age too. So, I just put her to bed in her cot when she was tired and stayed with her, soothing, tidying up around the room and so on, until she slept. Took a long time, and she did cry, but in an "I don't like this!" kind of way, not desperate. This is still what we do when she wakes now (at nearly 18 months) - and they will keep regressing whenever they're ill or unhappy, so be prepared! Good luck.

GColdtimer · 31/01/2009 08:59

blondeshavemorefun, I am sure your sleep training works. I just think it very much depends on your philosophy about sleep training, strict routines for newborns and leaving babies to cry. I personally don't believe in sleep training for young babies in the same way I don't believe in training dolphins to jump through hoops. It might work, but depending on your personal viewpoint, you may or may not feel it is right. That is not to be critical of people who do believe its right - its just not my way. I wasn't happy with my baby waking in the night but then I wasn't happy with the methods for getting her to sleep until I found the NCSS.

Nobody can really answer the OPs question because it very much depends on where you stand on these fundamental parenting issues. That was the point I was making. (And from my experience, if your heart isn't in CC than it isn't going to work.)

Best of luck with your baby. You might find it harder to be detached when it is your own baby. But then again, you might not.

bergentulip · 31/01/2009 15:24

You can do all the sleep training and still end up with a very stubborn baby who manages to stick it out with the yelling a lot longer than the parents lying in bed at 3am with a pillow of their ears......

.. this is certainly the case with my DS2 anyway. DS1 was pretty good, and had the odd off week every now and again (as said earlier, got to about 2yrs and has not had an off night since), DS2 on the other hand has had the occassional complete night's sleep, but does wake, and will scream and scream and scream and scream and scream until he gets what he wants.

We leave him for controlled amounts of time, we don't give him anything, we never take him out of the cot or turn any lights on etc..... but still. Stubborn as you like. Hence the reason I have just resigned myself to the fact and am happy to take 5mins to make a bottle and crawl back into bed, and I am resting my hopes on the fact he'll hit 2 and start 'behaving'... Here's hoping.

GColdtimer · 31/01/2009 18:10

you sound like me bergentulip. Until you ahve been there you don't really understand that it is actually easier to give them what they want and back into bed when you have a very, very tenacious child! I think they are probably the brightest .

DD got a LOT better at 2 and now she is 2.9 she gets rewarded for an undisturbed night and actually ASKS to get out of bed in the morning os there is light at the end of the tunnel

GColdtimer · 31/01/2009 18:11

meant to say bergen, the NCSS for toddlers solution helped us at about 18 months...

Blondeshavemorefun · 31/01/2009 18:11

very true twofalls

bergentulip - how long have you tried to do controlled crying etc - as in how many days

if you did it for two weeks, doing the same every night, and dont give in to milk, i am sure your son will sleep through after the two weeks if not before

but as he knows he will get milk if he cries, therefore he does

but if you are happy to be woken up every night and then give milk thats up to you

as i said there is no right or wrong - its just what parents want to do - and when they have had enough, they call me [asmile]

i have never had a baby/toddler i couldnt re train in 2 weeks - but bet mine will be the first

Sazlocks · 31/01/2009 21:05

My DS started sleeping from 7 ish til 7 ish when he was 12 months old - so within the last few weeks. Before that point he had gradually started waking less and less for feeding in the night. I didn't do anything to get him to the point of sleeping through -it just happened when he was ready to do it. That said I think I am probably fairly lucky in that apart from the first couple of months I wasn't too affected by being woken up in the night as I don't need that much sleep. So I wasn't that concerned about getting him to sleep through as I thought it would just happen at some point !

MrsHarry · 01/02/2009 12:53

My DD, like Sazlocks's DS, started sleeping 7 to 7 almost as soon as she reached 12 mths. I didn't have to do anything; she must just have been ready.

Before that she co-slept from about 8mths (came out of moses basket but hated her big cot and wouldn't sleep in it) and she BF thru the night, only dropping her 2am feed once she started sleeping thru. We just kept trying her in the cot until one night she just went to sleep in it.
When she was tiny she was completely the opposite - wouldn't sleep for more than an hour at atime and had loads of feeds and cuddles.

I think she was ready to sleep through once she was eating more solids, more regularly through the day, and also was loads more active, esp after she started walking at 13mths.

I think it depends completely on your baby and doesn't necessarily need training but perhaps OP won't really know until her baby is that much older; mine had changed so much by the time she was 12 mths!

bergentulip · 01/02/2009 15:23

Twofalls, thanks. It's good to know that my hopes for him growing out of it are at least not entirely wishful thinking.
I really do think he will.....

What is NSCC though? N...S....Controlled Crying?

And Blondeshavemorefun, I have not really attacked the 'controlled crying' method specifically..... not structured or with any sort of plan. I guess that it would probably work after a couple of weeks, but I don't like to feel that I am training him quite so much.
Rod for my own back and all. If it did get to be a real grind, or he gets to be a lot older and is still having trouble with sleeping through the night, then of course, something I'd consider, but I'd rather see how it goes as we are.

bergentulip · 01/02/2009 15:24

woops. NCSS, not NSCC- even more confused now.

Maria2007 · 01/02/2009 20:40

No cry sleep solution (book by Elizabeth Pantley)...

Lotster · 01/02/2009 21:51

My sister is a mum of three kiddies and swears by "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Richard Ferber. She also recommended it to her GP in a conversation one time, who in turn recommended it to patients. He got a lot of positive feedback apparently.

Can't say personally if it's ny good but she said it helped her enormously. I got it really chealy on Amazon used and new for a few pence in case I needed it in the future, so far I've seen it has an interesting chart which tells you the required amount of sleep for each age, seperated in to day and night. Good to have something to aim for and fall back on when you don't realise they are getting too much or too little of either.

Anyway thought I'd mention it!

AlettaM · 01/02/2009 22:46

Babies need to wake up at night they are designed to survive and to do that they need to be in human company, in the distant past if a baby woke up alone then it could have meant that their family was dead and they had been deserted so they needed to cry to let other family embers know they needed saving, babies need to sleep with their mums, they are also designed to breast feed and breast milk is designed to be easily digested so babies are supposed to wake tp feed during the night, ignoring these cues only teaches babies that their needs are not going to be met so what's the point in asking?

we all wake in the night we just may not notice and how many of us sleep alone through choice? the best way is to get some rest is to sleep with your baby in fact SIDS risk is reduced in breast fed babies and the best way to breast feed your baby in the night is in your own bed, FACT. just make sure you follow the guidelines e.g. don't take drugs (legal or not!) don'e smoke, don't have pets in the room etc etc look up www.llli.org/NB/NBsleep.html
for more information

GColdtimer · 02/02/2009 07:21

sorry bergentulip. I did mean the no cry sleep solution for toddlers by Elizabeth Pantley. She recommends lots of gentle ways of helping your child learn to sleep on its own without resorting to crying methods. She gives advice for dealing with the child that turns up in your bed every night, constant wakings, early mornngs, nightmares and night terrors, difficult bedtimes, etc. She also says that if you don't want to do any of these things are are happy to respond to your child/co-sleep then that is OK too. None of her solutions are quick fixes - they take a few weeks to take effect but some of them really helped us.

There is also one for babies but I didn't ever buy that one. Probably will if I have number 2 though because I agree with her philosophy.

Original poster

SweetBasil · 02/02/2009 14:52

I've been reading everyone's stories with interest and it seems that either I need to intervene, or let him, be or something in between .

Actually there has been some progress. I put Sweetling to bed in his cot (which is next to the bed) around 19h45. At midnight he mumbles and gets up for a crawl. If I can't settle him, I move him to the bed before he really wakes up (and before I really wake up). For the most of the last few nights, he's been waking between 4 and 4h30 instead of 2 or 3am. I feed him and he sleeps until 7h45. Somehow there is a psychological difference between waking before and after 4am. If he wakes before 4, I hold off feeding until 4. I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to gently stretch it to 6 or later.

So he's still waking up, but it's hardly punishing. It's definitely not worth having him cry. I get to sleep late enough and then laze until 8. I'm really hoping that by sleeping for longer stretches, he's learning better sleep skills (I like that, Mumblemum). And then we'll tackle the bed/cot issue.

OP posts:

bergentulip · 02/02/2009 19:38

thanks twofalls. That sounds a good approach. I'll look the book up.

Seems a good approach sweetbasil, stretching the time out gradually until it's not quite so middle-of-the-night, and feels a bit more like morning!
Good luck!

FreakGeek · 05/02/2009 17:09

my heart is with BOGEY and STARLIGHT- did either of you, or anyone else who hasnt done sleep training, or "failed" with it, feed to sleep with breast and then nature just sorted it out ? he used to coo to sleep after a feed but has forgotten how to do this and unless he feeds to sleep, is a battle. i wish we could survey lots of women who didnt sleep train- there are no scientific studies on this.There are some scarey posts on another thread about 2 year olds who dont sleep and have never slept through...am i setting us up for this ? DS is 6 months and hubby firmly believes nature will take its course

Skimty · 05/02/2009 20:04

You know what...

DS is 2.5 and has rarely slept through but it's all right. Okay, it's not ideal but you can cope. We are obsessed with getting children to sleep through but IMHO there are more important things.

Not that your children will all be that bad but just if they are you can cope. I promise!

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